


Glitter and Sweat

by lokineedstherapy



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drunkenness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 20:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13725441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokineedstherapy/pseuds/lokineedstherapy
Summary: Bond has an imperfect relationship with alcohol. Things aren't improving.





	Glitter and Sweat

At the end of the night the bar stank of glitter and sweat. The place was hardly empty, even though the owners had locked up hours ago- the tables and stools were populated with a lively crowd of bottles and glasses and puddles of spilled drink, the floor with lost peanuts and plastic cups and one single ladies’ shoe. Under the bright lights the whole place seemed to have been drained of its vitality. Placed under a sober microscope the atmosphere was tight and uncomfortable, the pictures on the walls which under low light seemed fun or at the worst not worth noticing leered out of their frames, laughing at the debris left behind.

In the very corner of the room, near the stairs leading down in a spiral to the toilets, sat a man on a stool. Steady hands ran habitually over his neatly parted, wiry, white hair and smoothed the sides of his beard as he kept an eye on his charge. He checked his watch - 3:20am. Paul had been waiting like this for almost an hour and a half and by this point the stench of piss and vomit which floated up to greet him were no longer making an impression.

By his feet a second man lay on the floor, propped up against the wall with his head angled down and to the side so that if he threw up again it would go into the bucket resting against him instead of back down into his lungs. He was completely unconscious now, snoring lightly with his limbs spread out into a star and dead still.

The owner of the bar sighed and leaned back against the tall round table behind him, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I swear to God, James,” he said, nudging his old friend’s knee with the toe of his shoe. “If your guy doesn't turn up in ten minutes I'm calling an ambulance anyway.” When, an hour and a half ago, he had started to clean and found Bond curled up and groaning around the toilet in the gents’, he had been more than happy to go along with it. There was no need, after all, for a soldier (or a sailor for that matter) to go to a doctor unless he were dying. Bond was very, very drunk, but he had been together enough to pull out his phone and guide the retired officer to one of his friends’ numbers. The name just read Q. He dialled.

“I'm so sorry to bother you at this hour,” Paul had begun,

“I was awake.” Came the terse, tired reply. “What has he done now?”

“He's drunk half his weight in liquor, looks like.” Paul said, and explained that he had once known James, twenty years or so ago.

Q sighed. Not the first time by a long shot; the instructions which followed came in one go, streamlined from practice. “Do not call an ambulance. It is imperative that his employer remain ignorant of this.”

“He's in pretty bad shape, a taxi won't take him.”

“I assumed as much and I will collect him personally. What is your address?”

Paul gave him the address.

“Thank you. Stay with him until I arrive. I am trusting you, sir, do not leave this responsibility with anyone else.”

Without waiting for agreement the mysterious Q had hung up. Paul had naively assumed that that meant that his arrival would be relatively speedy, but he had received neither a second call nor had he seen any sign of James’ new friend.

He was fed up with waiting now, but couldn't bring himself to actually make good on his half-hearted threat. Instead he checked Bond’s pulse - still strong and stable - and went to finish cleaning the toilets. It was a long job but he had just about finished half an hour later when he suddenly heard retching. Paul ran up the stairs again to see James dry heaving into the bucket and crouched down beside him.

All that Bond could hear was the infernal pounding of his blood through his head. Every single pulse hurt, white hot behind his eyes, which he kept tightly closed to fend off the blinding electric glare of the fluorescent overheads.  
When Paul’s hand gently took hold of his shoulder, Bond jumped and lashed out, arms coming forward to put distance between them. The effort forced up another round of bile and was only saved from ruining his shirt all over again by his old friend raising the bucket to his chin. James groaned, winded by the effort, and slumped back again.

“Q?” He asked.

“No,” Paul replied, surprised, “Captain Labarge.”

As if being pulled upwards by a string, Bond straightened into the best sitting attention he could manage in this state, eyes still resolutely clamped shut. “Captain,” he slurred. “I wasn't expecting you,”

He had forgotten entirely having already spoken to his fellow officer, it seemed. It must have been entirely chance that he had come to this bar, James was so genuinely shocked to find someone from his navy days running the bar. Paul took some moments to calm him down again and assure him that 'Q’ was coming, and then sat on the floor next to him. 

What had happened to him? Paul couldn't fathom it. The navy had been such a terribly long time ago now, and nothing particularly bad had happened to James then. He knew that the man’s private life had always been a bit of a disaster, but Bond had never been one to regale everyone with the details, and his naval career was about as standard and as ambitious as they came. So something, since then, must have caused this… mess. It really was pathetic, watching him curl up in a ball clutching his stomach, or kneading his clothes like a child who had lost their comfort blanket.

James didn't fall asleep again, so he couldn't escape to go carry on cleaning. He checked his watch - 4am. The rest of the bar would have to wait until tomorrow now, he was feeling his age and needed some rest.

It was only ten minutes later that James’ phone rang. Bond groaned loudly and turned away from the noise like a petulant child, and Paul answered. It was Q; he hadn't been expecting anyone else. He struggled to his feet and unlocked the old, small side door. It was covered with graffiti on the outside, the doorstep used so often as a urinal by drunk men who had been turned out of the bar that the paint had faded to several shades lighter than the identical paint on the inside. The hinges creaked in protest of their disuse as Paul cracked the door open, just enough for the young man to step inside.

Q took off his glasses as he stepped in and they began to steam up. He was basically blind like this, but he could still see the slumped form of James in the corner and sighed. “Thank you for looking after him… Paul, was it?” Q pulled a business card, crisp and white and bland, from his inside jacket pocket. He was still in a suit under his anorak and brightly coloured scarf. “I apologise for the delay, I was at work and unable to leave.”

The lenses of his glasses had warmed up enough now that he could put them back on. Paul looked surprisingly old. He still had a full head of hair, unlike James whose hairline had recently begun to recede and thin, but it was crisply white and combed so tightly into place that it looked like it wouldn't move if you hit it with a rock. His face sagged, heavy with lines and small folds of skin. The tattoo on his forearm was so faded that it was hardly visible.

“You'll be able to take care of him?”

“Of course. Unfortunately, this is hardly the first time this has happened, and as such I am well prepared. In the future I may have to outfit him with tracking bracelet, so that I can remove him from these establishments long before he requires an emergency exit.”

As irritated as he seemed, it wasn't with Paul. No, James and he had spoken about this several times before, at great length. No amount of promises or safeguards had worked, yet. 

Q went over to the corner where James was sat against the wall, cradling the partially filled bucket to his chest. He wrinkled his nose in disgust and immediately removed the bucket, placing it as far away as he could reach. “What happened this time, hm?” Q murmured.

James cracked open one eye to see who it was, and snapped it closed again as soon as the silhouette's face swam into focus. He shook his head, and then slapped the palm of his hand to his forehead. It felt like his brain was rattling around in his skull.

“James,” Q insisted, “talk to me.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Even heavily inebriated, Bond knew how to withstand questioning. But in the end, this wasn't a proper interrogation. He knew he could trust Q. “I need some water,” he started, and then when he heard Paul walk away to fetch it for him, he continued, “Had a bad day and I walked past it. I thought, maybe just one. And then I saw Paul and I was thinking about the navy and I just-”

“It's okay, darling.” Q interrupted. He didn't want James both drunk and upset.

Paul returned with the water, which Q made sure James did actually drink, in small sips, and then both the sober men helped Bond to his feet. He swayed and needed to hold onto Q's shoulder but he could just about walk far enough to get into the back seat of his car.

James couldn't remember even ten seconds after they set off if he had said goodbye to Paul, and didn't care enough to ask. He wouldn't be going back, it made him sad to see someone he had once seen as his peer fat and soft and old. While he was well aware that he hadn't exactly aged gracefully himself, Bond had at least managed to keep himself fit. Nevermind that it was a requirement of his job, nevermind that it was incredibly vain to think like that. He was perfectly aware of his vanity and did nothing to keep it in check - Q liked it, or at least told him that he liked it, and that was enough for him to keep going.

He also couldn't remember much of the journey home. Some lights, sometimes. Q’s hand on his leg when the car was stopped in traffic, the man's arm snaked around between the front seats to touch him. It was part comfort and part instruction, saying 'I love you, but stay there.’ James stayed where he was and focused on not throwing up.

Their flat wasn't much warmer than the freezing outside air. Q hadn't yet had the chance to go home and turn on the heating, or in fact to go home at all. He had been working since 9am the previous morning, punctuated only by breaks for food and now two hours of driving to get James safely home again. Q steered his drunk boyfriend through their home and into the bedroom, where he set him down gently and slowly onto the bed. James tried to take some of his own clothes off but ultimately it was Q who did most of the work. He was stripped right down to nothing and all his clothes went into the laundry before Q finally turned him onto his side and pulled the covers over him.

Q sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced his shoes. His feet ached, his legs ached, his back ached from standing up at his desk all day, trying to run a department handling such different subjects as cyber security and equipment production, and then the disaster which 005’s mission in Rio de Janeiro had taken up the entirety of his evening. The last thing the young Quartermaster needed tonight was to be babysitting his almost 50 year old boyfriend.

But, he couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Maybe if he had been home on time, when Bond had been alone in the flat, maybe if he had answered the man's calls in the evening, he wouldn't have fallen off the wagon yet again.

No. He stopped himself and stood. That was stupid, it wasn't his fault. It wasn't his job to make sure that James didn't drink, he couldn't put his work aside for things like that. He didn't know what the solution to 007’s criminal lack of control when he was upset might be, but he knew that they would find it eventually. And he would carry on doing this until they found it, so long as James kept trying.

Q considered changing into his pyjamas but eventually just stripped off and got into bed next to James. He was already asleep again. Even in rest, his features drew together in a frown. Q stoked James’ face, soft fingers caressing the overwarm skin. The worried expression improved for a moment but soon returned.

Q would give anything for the chance to get inside Bond’s head and sort everything out for him. He could soothe burns and stitch cuts but the worst of the wounds were the ones he couldn't see and couldn't reach. He wriggled forwards until their foreheads were touching, choosing to ignore the glitter on his boyfriend's face which made him itch, and the smell of alcohol on his breath, and the sweat he was leaving on the sheets. They both needed to sleep.

In the morning there would be time to clean up. They would have to talk about it again. James would refuse to talk to a therapist again, refuse to go to Alcoholics Anonymous again. And Q would concede, again, because it wasn't worth getting him worked up and angry over it all. In the end, Q figured, James would find a way to help himself, and forcing him into something he didn't want to do would just delay that process. No, it could all wait. It would have to.


End file.
